What Slows Down a Read Aloud

Picture books need to be under 500 words (and that's only when you overshoot 350.)  Pacing and word choice are important. Manuscripts must be read out loud.  I know these things, but a lightbulb clicked on recently:

time my read aloud story to ensure it reads like a low word count story.

So, I timed myself reading aloud the same books as my last post. Not because I'm lazy, because I'm efficient. Very efficient. Kind of like how I'm efficiently working my way through a bag of candy corn right now. Anyhow, here they are:

Kitten's First Full Moon (Henkes, 2004) - 264 words  - 3 minutes to read (1.5 seconds/word)
Children Make Terrible Pets (Brown, 2010) - 372 words - 3' 40" to read (1.7 seconds/word)
The Boy Who Cried Ninja (Latimer, 2011) - 517 words - 4 minutes to read (2.2 seconds/word)

You may be saying "Well, there's some variability each time you read a story." And you are right. I didn't note how many times my 3-year-old tried to pick my nose during each read, nor how long it took her to read all the "squeaks" in Children Make Terrible Pets.

You may also be saying "1 second or 2 seconds per word, you're splitting hairs." To which I say, "I have a hair appointment scheduled, and I'd thank you kindly to not point out my split ends."

What slows down a read aloud?

Ready. Set. Read!
(Stopwatch by Daino 16 via sxc.hu)
1. Long, Slow Words. Some words are delicious making you slow down and savor them, like applesauce in the 2 minute read Boy + Bot. Other words are long and twisty on the tongue, like cauliflower, and will slow a story down.  Not all long words are bad, like bulldozer, which has a lovely z in it and is nearly an onomatopoeia- fun to say and worth the time. You can't ban all long, slow words, but you must use them sparingly at appropriate times.

2. Long Sentences/ Complex Structure - The longest sentence in the slower read Ninja is 31 words. The longest sentence in Children is 16 words. Some of those long sentences are wonderfully written, but they do slow the pace. Other dangers lie in long/complicated sentences: confusion and long-windedness, which you never want your reader to suffer through.

3. Alliteration - A little alliteration is sweet, but a lot makes for a giant tongue-twister.  They aren't called tongue twisters because they are easy to read quickly (though we love to try!)

4. Repetition is tricky. Brief, cautiously used repeated phrases can speed up read aloud, because your brain is quickly recognizing those repeated words, as it does in Kitten with "poor kitten" or the repetition of "Squeaker" in Children.  But too much repetition can slow it down - like you're stuck in a never ending version of There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly.

I'm guilty of abusing all of these devices, going too far looking for an interesting word choice, creating complexity where it can be avoided, twisting tongues all day long. As penance, I'm going to force myself to finish this bag of candy corn and then start making better choices.

What do you think slows a read aloud down?



Comments

  1. I want to plaster this post all over the PB world interwebs!!!
    So funny, so true and so clever. I'll have to get my 10 yr old to show me how the stopwatch feature on the iTouch works so I can try this out. Pretty sure I'll be able to count words per sentence on my own, unless it goes about 10 fingers and 10 toes...

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    1. Yay! I'm glad you enjoyed it. It spawned out of one of my stories being read out loud for critique while my face reddened because it was a tongue-twisted mess! *sigh* And I thought that story was ready. At least I learned a very valuable lesson :)

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  2. Great post, Lauri. Thanks for analyzing these books for us! I hope you enjoyed your candy corn--I enjoyed your sense of humor :).

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    1. I really like candy corn. I had the WORST thing happen a few weeks ago. I bought a bag of candy corn, opened it, and threw a handful in my mouth. GAG! It was "harvest spice candy corn!" What the fluglehorn was that all about? It was worse than spiced jellybeans at Easter.

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  3. Mmm..Candy corn is my guilty pleasure. Anyway, excellent post, Lauri! I will be studying my read aloud more carefully.

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    1. I admit I am actually very lazy. I just found myself thinking about trying one of those text reader apps to see if I could get the computer to read my manuscript to me! Ooh. I have to try that for a future post "If your story still sounds great being read by a computer, you probably have a winner!"

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  4. Reading aloud while eating candycorn. Just kidding. An extra sentence you think could be left out. Great exercise, Lauri!

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    1. I always have food hanging out of my mouth when I write these posts, you are just lucky enough not to have to see it. Excuse #95 for not having tried a video yet :)

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  5. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't tell you how many submissions we receive that have come from somewhere between beautiful and bountiful. Oh, how I want to pursue them but I know what editors will say. It begins with "N" and ends with "O" - and that's the long and short of it.

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    1. Terrie - Thank you so much for stopping by. It seems so easy to recognize the sweet spot when you are reading someone else's story and so dagnabbit hard to find it when you're writing! Plus, when you are emotionally bonded to your story, sometimes you need a cold stop watch to give you a dose of reality.

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  6. Sorry I'm late to the party, but when I found this post, I couldn't help but comment. Some think me a nerd for analyzing books for this kind of minutiae, but it so obviously makes us better writers. A picture book is a unique art form in which EVERY detail matters. Thanks, thanks, thanks. I can't wait to share this with my critique group.

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    1. Better late than never...there's plenty of picture books to go around! I'm sort of living in a nerd glass house, so you don't have to worry about me calling you a nerd. I think there's magic in that depth of analysis!

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  7. Awesome guide for a PB. It's so important to keep in mind the oral component when writing read-alouds. :)

    For me and my little guy, even if the sentences are short and words are manageable, I still like to be able to turn pages quickly. I.e., I don't like pages with too much text on them. My 3yo sometimes get's impatient with the books we have that contain more text per page.

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    1. It's nice to have the choice right? Sometimes reading Owl Babies we still linger on every page and take our time thinking like an owl, but if I wanted to speed things up I could do that too. The reader needs to be respected by the writer in so many ways.

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